A Review of the Pelican 1920 Pocket Sized LED Flashlight

ericjohn

Enlightened
Joined
Jul 12, 2011
Messages
575
Location
1 Alpha Louisiana
Here is the link to this review as it appears on my blog:
https://ericjohnmonier.com/2019/07/03/a-review-of-the-pelican-1920-pocket-sized-led-flashlight/

I am not a practising tradesman anymore. I haven't been doing that sort of work full time in a little over a decade.


However, I know a good flashlight when I see it and I equally know how much a good flashlight is revered and sometimes coveted among tradespeople.

I believe this is Pelican's best flashlight for the money, hands down.


It can be had brand new for about $25 and it is bundled with two Energizer Max (Alkaline) AAA batteries!


I had owned one for almost two years and I have another one coming in the mail either later today or sometime Friday. There will be no mail service Thursday in observance of Independence Day.


I had mine for almost two years and I EDCed it in my backpack and quite a few times in my pants pocket and it performed flawlessly. It was even dropped on hard concrete and had the battle scars to show it, but it still performed without a single hiccup.


The reason why I no longer have mine is because it fell under the sofa at my friend's house. I located it there but before I found it I told him he could have it if he found it. Then I checked under the sofa and there it was. So, I presented it to him.


He is a welding student and almost finished with trade school.


I had been wanting for about a year to give him a small flashlight for use at school and on his future jobs.
This one couldn't be more perfect.


I bought my first one at Smoky Mountain Knife Works in June of 2017, while on vacation in East Tennessee.


When I got home from that aforementioned trip, I decided to rewrite (The Textfile) completely from memory as I had deleted it from all my devices and storage media, because I felt so ashamed and convicted for writing it. In this new version, my main character, Grayson Thomas, was no longer a tractor mechanic (that position had gone to Logan Baines in "Radiant Affection", which I started in 2012 and at first was written as a replacement and a form of repentance and atonement for writing the original version of "The Textfile" in 2005 and 2006.


In the new (2017) version of "The Textfile", Grayson Thomas is now instead a dockyard mechanic, and he extensively uses his Pelican 1920 on his job but he also EDC's it during his off hours. I hadn't written the part yet, but, Grayson Thomas will be knocked unconscious and comatose from a fall he sustained on the job while repairing the yard crane and the envious roustabouts in the dockyards will gamble over his Pelican 1920 flashlight that had fallen from his pants pocket. That is how much this flashlight impressed me, by the way!


I soon realized that I miss that flashlight, so recently, I ordered a new one.


Here is what I like about the Pelican 1920:

It can take a great deal of abuse and still work as well as when it was first unboxed. While, the impact rating isn't rating isn't available on Pelican's website, I would imagine it to be "tactical grade" or at least "contractor grade" and I've dropped mine on concrete from a height of maybe five feet and it still worked perfectly.


The pocket clip is made of Carbon Steel and won't bend or break like so many other pocket clips. It is firmly planted on the flashlight body as it has a ring around the threaded connector where the tail switch attaches, so it won't even pop off!


The switch is "tactically correct." This means that it has a forward clickie and can be turned on momentarily and then off as soon as the switch is released or with more pressure it can be turned completely on. Switching between light settings can be done without fully depressing the switch as well.


The LED light engine features two settings:
Low-22 Lumens for 8 Hours and 45 Minutes-enough to see close up work for maybe a week on a set of batteries.
High-224 Lumens for 2 Hours and 15 Minutes-just enough to light up the walk from the bus, train, aircraft, boat or personal vehicle to the job site. This is especially useful as many of these jobs in which a flashlight like this is used entail coming in around dawn and knocking off around dusk. This is even more true in the winter months especially at higher Latitudes.


The water resistance rating is IPX7, which according to ANSI, means:
"Ingress of water in quantities causing harmful effects shall not be possible when the enclosure is temporarily immersed in water under standardized conditions of pressure and time."
In other words, it should be okay to work in and under shallow bodies of water without it being ruined. Pelican makes flashlights that are capable of going much deeper underwater as well!


The only jobs where this flashlight would be inappropriate would be those that involve working extensively on live electrical circuits or those that involve the direct handling of volatile commodities, to which Pelican has a wide selection of flashlights for those situations, as well.


My only complaint I have about this flashlight is that it isn't American made like some of the other Pelican flashlights, but we live in a shrinking world.


I would be tickled pink if my new flashlight would be in the mail today, but accept that I might have to wait until Friday.


By the way I give the Pelican 1920 a five out of five stars!


This therefore concludes my review.


I hope, you, the reader, have been informed and maybe even entertained.


 

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,477
Location
Dust in the Wind
Good stuff (as always) EJ. Thanks for your thoughts.


I've always liked Pelican lights. I think one of the admins here spoke fondly of his 1920.

I bought a first gen 2350 (1x aa) for the throw. Old school pencil beam. They updated the gen 2 to be programmable and the added lumens made it more floody with less cd than gen 1.

The newest 2360 (2x aa) is also programmable with an added fuel check feature where 4 half presses causes it to flash X times for available fuel in 25% incriments. ie 3 flashes means 75% fuel left.

Pelican went the way of Streamlight and has their products made in the same overseas factory. But they also lowered prices on the Asian made products. It makes them more affordable to low wage craftsman and law officers while being a lot better quality than those junky 511 numbers. Not known to many but the LED's in them were born in America and packaged in China.
 
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FLfrk

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jul 25, 2015
Messages
190
Location
Irvine, CA
I think I recall a thread about the Pelican 1910 and 1920. One of my very first decent lights was the 1910, same thing but single AAA version. Awesome quality light indeed
 

RobertMM

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 21, 2014
Messages
1,085
Location
Las Piñas, Philippines
My first Pelican was a 2AA 2360, a 375 lumen programmable version, awesome light for the money.

I'd like to get a 1920 or 1910 as well but the local seller only has the older 120 lumen version for 35USD, not buying that.

Nice writeup and insights, I enjoyed reading.
 

Kestrel

Flashaholic
Joined
Oct 31, 2007
Messages
7,372
Location
Willamette Valley, OR
Thanks for the overview; FYI we have a pretty good thread on the 1910 &1920 here, that gets updated once in a while:

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/v...AA-lights-to-get-brighter-and-have-dual-modes

I do like mine, except that this particular one occasionally has a high-speed flicker (slower than PWM tho), on either the low or high mode, which is a disappointment. A few other posters have noted this as well. :-/
 

busseguy

Enlightened
Joined
Jan 24, 2010
Messages
578
Thanks for the overview; FYI we have a pretty good thread on the 1910 &1920 here, that gets updated once in a while:

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/v...AA-lights-to-get-brighter-and-have-dual-modes

I do like mine, except that this particular one occasionally has a high-speed flicker (slower than PWM tho), on either the low or high mode, which is a disappointment. A few other posters have noted this as well. :-/




Im one of them. I still haven't bought the Deoxit to try to fix the issue. Also on my 2AA 2360 pelican the tailcap has some kind of burr or something so each and every time I go to put the cap on it stops, then I have to back it off again and rethread it on.

And of course Pelican can't just send me a new tailcap, I have to send the whole light back on my dime to have them replace it :-(
 
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